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Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs - History

The purpose of the Pugwash Conferences is
to bring together, from around the world, influential scientists,
scholars and public figures concerned with reducing the danger of
armed conflict and seeking cooperative solutions for global
problems. Meeting in private as individuals, rather than as
representatives of governments or institutions, Pugwash
participants exchange views and explore alternative approaches to
arms control and tension reduction with a combination of candor,
continuity, and flexibility seldom attained in official East-West
and North-South discussions and negotiations. Yet, because of the
stature of many of the Pugwash participants in their own
countries (as, for example, science and arms-control advisers to
governments, key figures in academies of science and
universities, and former and future holders of high government
office), insights from Pugwash discussions tend to penetrate
quickly to the appropriate levels of official policy-making.

The Pugwash Conferences take their name
from the fishing village of Pugwash, Nova Scotia, site of the
first meeting in 1957 which was attended by 22 eminent scientists
(seven from the United States, three each from the Soviet Union
and Japan, two each from the United Kingdom and Canada, and one
each from Australia, Austria, China, France, and Poland). The
stimulus for this first Pugwash meeting was the "Manifesto"
issued in 1955 by Bertrand Russell and
Albert Einstein,
and also signed by Max Born, Percy Bridgman, Leopold
Infeld, Frederic
Joliot-Curie, Herman Muller, Linus Pauling,
Cecil Powell,
Joseph Rotblat, and Hideki Yukawa, which
called upon scientists of all political persuasions to assemble
to discuss the threat posed to civilization by the advent of
thermonuclear weapons. The 1957 meeting was hosted by the
American philanthropist Cyrus Eaton at Thinkers' Lodge in
Pugwash, his birthplace, and Mr. Eaton continued to provide
crucial support for Pugwash in its early years.

From that beginning evolved both a
continuing series of meetings at locations all over the world -
with a growing number and diversity of participants - and a
decentralized organizational structure to coordinate and finance
this activity. By September 2002 there had been over 275 Pugwash
Conferences, Symposia, and Workshops, with a total attendance of
over 4,000 scientists and other individuals.

Pugwash convenes between 8 and 12 meetings
a year, consisting of the large annual Conference, attended by
150 to 250 people, and the more frequent Workshops and Study
Group meetings, which focus on specific issues and typically
involve 20 to 50 participants. A basic rule is that participation
is always by individuals in their private capacity (not as
representatives of governments or organizations).

The current President of Pugwash is Prof.
M.S. Swaminathan of India (scientific pioneer of the agricultural
'Green Revolution' and chair, M.S. Swaminathan Research
Foundation, Chennai, India), the Secretary General is Prof. Paolo
Cotta-Ramusino of Italy (Professor of physics at the University
of Milan), and the Executive Director is Dr. Jeffrey Boutwell of
the US (former Associate Executive Officer at the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences).

Formal governance of Pugwash is provided by
a 28-member Council, which generally meets once a year, and by a
6-member Executive Committee (see list below). Council members
are elected every five years at the Quinquennial
Conferences, held since 1962, which approve the long-term
goals and bylaws of Pugwash. Prof. Marie Muller (Professor of
international politics at the University of Pretoria) is Chair of
the Pugwash Council.

Pugwash has four small permanent offices,
in Rome, London, Geneva and Washington, DC, which operate with a
total of only three full-time staff persons and a few part-time
and volunteer staff. There are some 50 National Pugwash Groups
around the world, each organized independently, and in several
cases sponsored and/or administered by academies of science,
which help to identify suitable participants from their countries
and rotate the work of hosting meetings (with funds raised
locally).

The costs of operating the Pugwash offices
and operations are met by a combination of contributions and
grants from individuals, foundations, governments, and the
National Pugwash Groups, and donated services from individuals
(all the officers of Pugwash serve pro bono). The meeting costs
for workshops and the annual conference are most often covered by
the host national Pugwash Group, while international Pugwash
frequently provides travel support to participants, especially
from developing countries.

The first two decades of Pugwash coincided
with some of the most dangerous years of the Cold War, marked by
the Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the repression of
the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, and the Vietnam War. In this
period of strained official relations and few unofficial
channels, the fora and lines of communication provided by Pugwash
played useful background roles in helping lay the groundwork for
the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the Non-Proliferation Treaty
of 1968, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 and SALT I
accords, the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, the
Intermediate-range theater Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty, as well as
the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993. Despite subsequent
trends of generally improving East-West relations and the
emergence of a much wider array of unofficial channels of
communication, Pugwash meetings have continued to play an
important role in bringing together key scientists, analysts and
policy advisers for sustained, in-depth discussions of the
crucial arms-control issues of the day, particularly in the areas
of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

The Pugwash Workshops on Nuclear
Weapons have brought together government and military figures
with scientists and policy analysts to keep open lines of
communication on such sensitive issues as: initiatives to limit
missile defenses that led to the 1972 ABM Treaty; the Euromissile
and Star Wars controversies of the 1980s; the dangers posed by
the breakup of the Soviet Union regarding fissile material and
the decommissioning of nuclear systems; the emergence of India
and Pakistan as nuclear powers and the threat of additional
proliferation; and the ramifications of US plans for national
missile defense (NMD) and the implications of NMD for nuclear
stability and arms control.

The Pugwash Chemical and Biological
Warfare Workshops, which began in 1959, were instrumental in
bringing together technical experts, official negotiators, and
industry and academic experts to help lay the framework for the
1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Earlier, Pugwash helped arrange
the first visit in 1987 of Western chemical weapons specialists
to an East bloc chemical production complex (in East Germany),
and Pugwash contacts were instrumental in setting up the first
access by a US expert (Matthew Meselson) to the medical records
associated with the disputed 1979 anthrax outbreak in
Sverdlovsk.

The Pugwash Workshops on Conflict and
Regional Security have covered a wide range of conflict
situations, from track II diplomacy to end the Vietnam War in the
late 1960s to an ongoing series of meetings on the Middle East
peace process to the more recent Pugwash Study Group on
Intervention, Sovereignty and International Security that seeks
to find common ground between western and non-western
perspectives on issues of humanitarian intervention.

The Pugwash Workshops on Energy, the
Environment and the Social Responsibility of Scientists have
capitalized on the global network of Pugwash scientists to hold
specific meetings and consultations on the major scientific and
technological issues facing the international community. The
workshops have covered broader issues such as global climate
change and future world energy needs as well as more specific
topics such as two recent workshops held in Cuba on public health
and medical research.

While Pugwash findings reach the policy
community most directly through the participation of members of
that community in Pugwash meetings and through the personal
contacts of other participants with policy makers, additional
means of disseminating policy analysis and ideas are also used.
Published twice a year, the Pugwash Newsletter contains reports
of meetings, communiqués of the Pugwash Council, news of
national Pugwash groups, and selected papers, and reaches over
2,000 policy makers, Pugwash participants, the media, and
libraries (while also being posted regularly on the Pugwash
web site, at www.pugwash.org).

The Pugwash Occasional Paper series
focuses in-depth on particular issues of concern to Pugwash.
Recent issues have covered global perspectives on issues of
humanitarian intervention and the ramifications of missile
defenses for nuclear stability.

Pugwash Issue Briefs are aimed
primarily at policymakers, leaders of NGOs and international
organizations, and the media, and contain detailed and specific
proposals aimed at influencing policy and public opinion. Recent
editions include Nuclear Terrorism: The Danger of Highly
Enriched Uranium (September 2002) and US-Cuban Medical
Cooperation: Effects of the US Embargo (June 2001).

* Since the
official publication Les Prix
Nobel no longer contains descriptions of organizations
receiving the Peace Prize, this "History of Organization" is from
Pugwash's web
site and is published here with the permission of Pugwash.
The text was updated in 2003.